The views expressed in this blog are based entirely on personal tastes and opinions. They should not be construed as professional reviews in anyway. Any resemblance to actual reviews, living or deceased, is entirely coincidental.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Restaurant Week – Il Lido

C says:

Singapore’s 3rd edition of Restaurant Week is on from 9th to 16th October 2011. Since we missed out on most of the good stuff during the second instalment, I decided to book on the very first day that they opened bookings to the public. Some choice places were already booked up, but we managed to get a few reservations at some restaurants that had quite enticing Restaurant Week menus.

I’d already planned for a few days off in October, and fortuitously it coincided with the first two days of Restaurant Week. A and I decided to have a “romantic” day out in Sentosa, starting with lunch at Il Lido. We’ve resisted coming to Il Lido for the longest time, since we’ve always had the impression that it was pretty poncey and fine dining. Since the Restaurant Week menu looked half decent, we finally took the plunge.

We started with an amuse bouche of poached smoked salmon with caviar and a sour cream sauce. Not bad, but nothing to shout about.

The appetiser was seared scallops with blueberry sauce. This was quite disappointing – the scallops were underseasoned so the whole dish tasted pretty flat.

We ordered one each of the main courses (we passed on the vegetarian option, of course) – the beef cheek and the seabass. The beef cheek was good – slow-cooked and tender without being overtly stew-like, and served with a green pea sauce. The seabass was baked en papillote (but plastic), but this was a tad too disconcertingly “steamed Teochew style” for my liking, as the broth was clear and slightly tart from the cherry tomatoes.

Dessert was a molten chocolate cake with a twist – served with a yogurt ice cream rather than vanilla. I liked the tartness of the yogurt ice cream, which tempered the sweetness of the chocolate somewhat. A begged to differ, though.

I maintain that set lunches and Restaurant Week-esque offerings may not necessarily show a restaurant’s full potential, and I think that goes for lunch today as well. The food was alright – good enough that I may consider coming back once more to try some of their interesting-sounding pastas on the a la carte menu, but it’s certainly not at the top of my list.

A says:

The view and service are great. The food less so. But the standard’s decent enough and having checked out the regular menu, the pastas look interesting and the prices aren’t astronomical, so we’ll be back... some time... I guess...